The Courtesan's Secret Read online

  When had Blakesley learned how to be stern? And yet it could certainly never be said that he had ever been soft.

  “A man does not need to be foxed to find your company compelling. Whyever would you think so?”

  A thousand responses rose in her mind, but strangely, none could find their way to her lips. She was, for perhaps the first time in memory, too stunned for speech.

  His face was very close, too close. She could feel his nearness like a fire in a winter room, his hair gleaming gold and hot, his eyes blue and piercing. This was not Blakesley as she knew him. This was not Blakesley as she wanted to know him. This man was too much the man and, though it galled her to admit it even to herself, she was not adept at managing men. She was no Sophia Dalby and that was the sad truth of it.

  “Speechless, Louisa?” he taunted. “I would not have thought it possible.”

  Which, naturally, was exactly the prod she needed to find her tongue.

  “I wish you were drunk, Lord Henry, for that would be some excuse, however feeble, for presuming there ever could be such a thing as a respectable seduction. I thought you knew me well enough to know that I am not particularly interested in behaving respectably, and I am not at all interested in being seduced. You misspoke completely. If you are not drunk, you should get drunk at the earliest opportunity. I know I shall, if only to wash this memory from me as thoroughly as possible.”

  It was a good speech, a fine speech. It was both clever and cutting, a pairing she particularly liked.

  It was so unfortunate that Blakesley did not respond appropriately. It was completely like him.

  Blakesley grinned, showing fully half his teeth, the imbecile.

  “How fortunate that you don’t care particularly for respectability or for seduction, Lady Louisa. It makes my proposal ideal for you. You shouldn’t have any trouble at all in arranging yourself and your schedule to the terms of the wager,” he said.

  She didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about, naturally, but she did know that her evening was not going at all as planned. When did it ever?

  “Are we back to the wager? I was beginning to think you made it up to get me alone,” she said sarcastically.

  They were hardly alone, the room being almost full now, but she wasn’t anywhere near Dutton and that was all that mattered.

  “Alone? We have never been alone, Louisa, not truly,” he said, echoing her own thoughts, which was highly annoying as she wished her thoughts to be her own and no one else’s. “If we ever are alone, you shall surely note the difference.”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she said dismissively. “A great difference, as you say, but as we shall never put it to the test, it is hardly the subject for a wager. We were talking of a wager that concerned me, were we not?”

  She did not particularly care for the look in his eyes as it was rather more speculative than was entirely complimentary. Not that Blakesley was ever complimentary in the slightest, but this look was almost rapacious. The small hairs on her arms stood up in rigid alarm.

  She most definitely needed a strong drink. This evening was becoming more uncomfortable by the instant and Blakesley, her comfortable ally on every other evening for the past two years, was the cause.

  Men were such a nuisance.

  “Yes, Lady Louisa, the wager,” he said softly. The room was not at all crowded, it was simply too large for that, but it was noisy and full and they were hardly alone. Yet the look in his eyes, the tenor of his voice, captured her as nothing had done for years. Nothing with the exception of Lord Dutton, of course. “As we are not alone,” he said, his gaze leaving hers to scan the room. He echoed her thoughts again and it was as equally annoying as it had been the last time.

  “I believe that point has been made and made again,” she interrupted. “Can we not move from it?”

  The fact that they weren’t alone and would never be alone was becoming a point of increasing irritation. Blast it all, but now she wondered what it would be like to be alone with him.

  A minor point. She was quite certain it would pass.

  “Certainly,” he said, sounding not at all amiable. “I’ll state it plainly, shall I?” He did not pause for her consent. It was completely like him. “A wager has been made, a wager concerning you and your pearls—”

  “They are no longer my pearls, are they?” she interrupted.

  “They are in Lord Dutton’s possession, are they not? A condition made most obvious in this very house not a week ago.”

  “And the wager springs from just this foundation,” he said. “You would like to reclaim the Melverley pearls, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Then you must do as I tell you, Louisa, and you must do it quickly and without argument.”

  If that wasn’t the most likely of male orders to a female, well, then she didn’t know men at all. And she did know men, she understood them very well, she just couldn’t seem to manage them efficiently. Certainly it was a skill which could be learned?

  “On the points of a wager?” she said with no little sarcasm. “Not at all probable, Lord Henry.”

  She felt a stirring behind her and turned her head slightly to look, which put her precious and not so perfect curl dangerously near Blakesley’s shoulder; he could muss it beyond repair with a shrug. He probably would, too. He was in the most peculiar mood tonight.

  “Why is the Marquis of Penrith coming this way?” Blakesley grumbled.

  It was with great delight that she answered, “I met him for the first time just this afternoon at Dalby House. He’s a most agreeable man, don’t you think?”

  She had turned slightly more and saw Penrith sliding through the crowd. Penelope Prestwick, that cow, turned a simpering smile upon him, but Penrith slipped past her efforts. Good man.

  “How lovely Miss Prestwick looks tonight,” Blakesley said. “I see she’s wearing diamonds.”

  “Yes, doesn’t she always,” she said tartly. Penelope Prestwick had the annoying habit of wearing diamonds on every occasion. It was becoming something of a joke about Town.

  “And they look so well on her,” Blakesley said softly, looking down at Louisa with a very amused expression. “She’s such a pleasant girl, so agreeable.”

  “Is she?” Louisa said stiffly. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “You were going to tell me something, Lord Henry? If not, I would like to rejoin my cousin,” she snapped. “Perhaps Lord Penrith will escort me. He looks so very eager to reach my side, does he not? I am almost certain he will do whatever I ask. Such an agreeable man.”

  “Yes, well, whatever he’s coming to do, he’s going to have to wait,” Blakesley snapped, cutting her off again. Blakesley really was quite a horrid man; she didn’t know why she had tolerated him for as long as she had. “The points of the wager are these,” Blakesley said, his mouth quite close to her ear. His breath washed over her neck and against the delicate back of her ear with alarming intimacy. She almost shivered. Almost. “If you want your pearls back, you must pursue me, Louisa.”

  “I beg your pardon?” she said, pulling away from him and his intimate breath. Unfortunately, there was not much room to move and all she succeeded in doing was to plant her shoulder firmly against his chest. He had a very hard chest.

  “A wager was made today at White’s. Would Lady Louisa Kirkland pursue her pearls, which are now in my possession, or would she continue in her pursuit of the Marquis of Dutton?”

  “Continue?” she gasped. “At White’s?”

  She couldn’t quite grasp it. Did all the world know of her tendre for Lord Dutton? She couldn’t breathe. If Blakesley would only move his very hard chest away from her, she might be able to form a coherent thought.

  Blakesley wasn’t cooperating at all tonight, on any point.

  “Listen to me, Louisa,” he said, pulling her arm, the arm that was wedged against his chest, and turning her to face him. His face was very
close and his eyes very blue, she did notice that through her haze of confusion. “If you want your pearls back, pursue me. I shall win them for you. The question is, do you want your pearls?”

  “Of course,” she said. It was the one clear thought she could formulate. “But how is this the subject of a wager? Who would make such a bet?”

  “It hardly matters, does it?” Blakesley said softly, looking down at her with what she would have called tenderness on anyone else’s face. On Blakesley’s face, she didn’t know what to call it. “Avoid Dutton for the next few days, enjoy my company as you have in the past, and the pearls are yours. Can you do it?”

  “Can I do it? Of course I can do it,” she snapped. “I can and would do anything to get my pearls. Melverley should never have sold them.”

  There were many things Melverley should not have done, as well as all the things he should stop doing immediately, but she had given up on her father long years ago.

  “And what were you doing at Dalby House today?” he asked with a snarl. Blakesley was of the most uneven temper tonight. “You can’t have imagined Dutton would be there.”

  “I imagined no such thing!” she snarled right back at him. “I do have female friends, you know.”

  “Not at Dalby House, you don’t,” he snipped.

  Really, this entire conversation was devolving into the ludicrous.

  It was at that moment that their conversation was blessedly interrupted. She turned to face Lord Penrith, for certainly he had made his way to them by now. Louisa wiped every trace of annoyance off her face and, flicking her rumpled curl into place, turned to face him.

  She heard Blakesley snort in either amusement or derision, though she couldn’t possibly have cared which.

  But it wasn’t Penrith with his tousled dark blond locks and green eyes who faced her. No, of course not, nothing that simple.

  It was the Indian.

  Eleven

  FROM across the salon the Marquis of Dutton watched with a careless eye the conversation between Lady Louisa and Lord Henry Blakesley. He rather suspected that Blakesley was cheating at their wager. He also, not without some vanity, thought that even cheating would not change the outcome.

  Louisa Kirkland was as besotted as any woman could possibly be. He had enough experience of women to know that. Which was precisely why he was standing directly across from Mrs. Anne Warren. She might be pledged to marry the ancient Lord Staverton, but she was his for the taking. They both knew that, even if she was currently ignoring him completely.

  A woman never wasted time ignoring a man she didn’t want.

  Anne Warren stood politely ignoring him, pretending to listen to the Duke of Calbourne go on about something, likely his latest foal, which in normal circumstances would have interested him. But these were hardly normal circumstances.

  Louisa Kirkland must find him available when she rushed over to present herself in all her virginal splendor.

  Anne Warren must find him irresistible so that she gave him a tumble either before or after her wedding, he hardly cared which.

  And Sophia Dalby must somehow be made to stop laughing at him. She was laughing, silently to be sure, but laughing nonetheless.

  He looked at her and raised a single eyebrow to lofty heights. He’d quelled more than one rebellious mare with that look.

  Damned, if the woman didn’t chuckle.

  “Your plate is quite full, Lord Dutton,” Sophia said, her dark eyes gleaming with humor. “I should not think you have the resources to take on yet another female. Best you save your censure for less experienced prey.”

  Upon which, Mrs. Warren turned just enough so that she fully faced Lord Iveston and presented him with her back. A lovely back it was, too. The more fully she shut him out, the more fully he knew how hungry for him she was.

  He could not help but smile in anticipation.

  “I do so like to see confidence in a man,” Sophia said, taking a step toward him and turning slightly so that they were separated from the party made up of Lord Iveston, the Duke of Calbourne, Mrs. Warren, Lady Amelia Caversham, and Lady Jordan. Mr. George Grey, to whom he’d been introduced just a few minutes earlier, was making his way across the salon to where Louisa and Blakesley stood in heated conversation. He did not have to imagine what they were discussing.

  “You do have your share and then some,” she continued, forcing him to give her his full attention.

  It was not difficult. Sophia Dalby was a compelling woman. She also neither avoided him nor sought him out. Clearly, she had no interest in him whatsoever. It did happen, now and again. He had learned not to take it to heart.

  “I have often wondered how sturdy your confidence is, Lord Dutton,” she said, taking yet another step nearer to him and giving him a wonderful view of her décolleté. He enjoyed it immensely.

  “I have never had it put to the test, Lady Dalby,” he said. “Would that make a good wager? You seem ever to be instigating wagers.”

  “I turn a profit when I can, my lord,” she said cheerfully. “But I would not wager against your confidence. It is such a rare trait in a man. I should so hate to be the cause, however indirectly, of shattering it.”

  “Perhaps in the men of your usual acquaintance,” he said, stung more than he wanted to admit by her statement, ridiculous though it was. Why his gaze turned to Anne Warren in that instant he could not have said. Well, perhaps he could, but he did not want to delve at all into that particular pond.

  “I assure you, darling,” she said with a soft smile, “that I am acquainted with only the best of men of the highest rank. Is tonight not proof of that?”

  “And your nephew?” he asked, turning the dig back upon her. “Is he of the best and highest?”

  The fellow was an American Indian, that much was obvious. It had been a surprise, certainly, but he had taken it in good step. Odd, that he had heard no rumor about Sophia’s savage family tree. He had, when he had thought about it at all, assumed she was of French descent.

  “The very best,” she said without hesitation and with complete ease of manner, “and very nearly the highest. Iroquois, specifically Mohawk, if you are at all familiar with the tribes of North America, which of course you must be as they have ever and always played such a large and meaningful part in so many of England’s various wars. England is not the only society which has an aristocracy, you realize.”

  Actually, he had known no such thing about Indian society, and he did not suppose he could have been expected to know. To be honest, he was not at all surprised that Sophia, no matter her background as a courtesan, was from some ancient Iroquois aristocracy. She had always had a certain manner about her which, according to all reports, she had possessed long before marrying the Earl of Dalby.

  “May I ask how you came by such a lineage, Lady Dalby? I must admit to being surprised by the connection,” he said, hoping to turn the conversation away from himself and upon her. He was curious, as well. One did not meet an Indian from the forests of America every day of the week.

  “Oh, the usual way, Lord Dutton,” she answered sweetly. “By marriage.”

  “Then Mr. Grey is your nephew fully? His father . . . ?”

  “My brother,” she said, nodding. “Yes, we are fully and completely and most contentedly related. Which means, you understand, that Markham, the ninth Earl of Dalby, is fully related to an Iroquois sachem as well. Did you ever think to hear it? A peer of the realm with Iroquois blood running rampant through his veins? I daresay it will do England some good, wouldn’t you agree?”

  He didn’t particularly agree, no, but as there wasn’t a thing he could do about it, he didn’t waste effort in turmoil. It was one of the finest aspects of his character that he had determined from an early age what was worth spending one’s time and effort on and what was not. Indians in Parliament was not. Mrs. Warren was.

  Life was so simple when one had firm priorities and kept to them.

  Actually, Parliament wouldn’t be harmed a bi
t if they assumed something of his policy.

  “I daresay that England will survive,” he said lightly, looking over Sophia’s head at the current gathering.

  The room was nearly full; they would soon enter into dinner. Mrs. Warren was still with Iveston, Calbourne, and the Caversham girl, who, without any subtlety to speak of, was looking for a duke to wed. Blakesley was still with Louisa, and not making much progress by the angry looks they were exchanging.

  Blakesley was one of those odd fellows who apparently couldn’t find his way with a woman if he had her naked and tied to a bed. Most peculiar, and endlessly entertaining.

  “There’s that confidence again,” Sophia said softly, waving her fan gently to move the dark curls about her face.

  “A family trait,” he said, giving her his full attention again.

  It was hardly hard duty. Sophia Dalby was both seductive and beautiful and she possessed the added allure of knowing fully the depth of her appeal. It was, to be sure, an elegant and exotic combination of assets.

  “Yes,” she breathed, smiling playfully at him, “I remember.”

  As he had no intention of allowing the conversation to drift there, he said, “But what of Lady Caroline? Are she and Lord Ashdon thriving in matrimony?”

  “They must be,” Sophia said. “I haven’t heard a word from them since they left for Chaldon Hall.”

  “You don’t expect them to return to Town this Season?”

  “Lord Dutton, I have no expectations whatsoever. Should I?”

  “It is only that I perceived Mrs. Warren was something of a companion to Lady Caroline. I suppose I had wondered if she would accompany your daughter on her bridal trip.”

  Sophia smiled serenely, but her dark eyes were gleaming with amusement as she answered what even he could admit was a clumsy sortie into the status of Anne Warren.

  “And she did not,” Sophia said, looking past him to nod at someone.

  Dutton would not have attempted looking behind him to see who it was, but he was tempted to do so. Something in Sophia’s eyes had shifted at the nod and he was beyond curious to know who could effect such a change in her. Sophia, it could almost be said, looked suddenly predatory.